Ralph Barbour - Four Afloat - Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Water

“Thunder!” exclaimed Bob at last. “The chap who laid out this town must have been crazy! I’ll bet you anything, fellows, this is the same lane we were on five minutes ago. Look here, Nelson, are you plumb certain you’re not lost?”

“Yes,” answered the other.

“Well, I’m not,” growled Dan. “I’m lost as anything. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. I’d just like to – ”

But at that moment a dray horse tried to walk up his back, and Dan’s remarks were cut short. When he had reached the other side of the street in safety he half turned his head and addressed himself to Tommy.

“Did you see that blamed horse?” he asked indignantly. “He deliberately tried to walk through me. Guess he mistook me for one of those short cuts that Nelson is always talking about. I’ve a good mind to go back and have him arrested.”

As there was no reply, Dan turned and looked back. Then:

“Whoa! Back up!” he shouted. “We’ve lost Tommy!”

Consternation reigned.

“When did you see him last?” asked Nelson anxiously.

“About five minutes ago, I guess,” said Dan. “It was when we were coming through that three-inch boulevard back there. Poor Tommy!” he said sorrowfully. “We’ll never see him again.”

“I guess we’d better go back and look for him,” said Nelson.

“Have you any idea you know how we came?” asked Dan incredulously.

“If we don’t find him, he’ll make his way home, I guess,” said Bob.

“I’ll bet I can tell you what’s happened to him,” said Dan.

“What?”

“He’s got stuck fast in one of these narrow streets, of course. I only hope they won’t have to tear down a building or two to get him loose.”

“Oh, they’ll probably let him stay there until he is starved thin,” laughed Nelson.

“That’s so. And build a flight of steps over him. Bet you a dollar, though, that when they do pry him loose, they’ll arrest him for stopping the traffic!”

“Well, come on,” said Nelson. “We’ll see if we can find him.”

So they turned and retraced their steps, although Dan affirmed positively that they had never come that way.

“The sensible thing to have done,” he grumbled, “was to have stayed just where we were and waited for the streets to come around to us. Then, when one went by with Tommy on the sidewalk, we could have just reached out and plucked him off.”

But no one heard him save a newsboy, who thought he was asking for an afternoon paper.

After five minutes on the “back trail,” they concluded to give it up, agreeing that Tom had probably wandered into one of the side streets, and that he would undoubtedly find some one to direct him to Nelson’s house. So they started again for the yacht-supply store, Dan pretending to be terribly worried.

“Who’s going to break the news to his parents?” he asked lugubriously. But by the time they were in sight of their destination he had acquired a more cheerful frame of mind. “Of course,” he confided to Nelson – the sidewalk here was wide enough to allow them to walk two abreast – “of course, I’m sorry to lose Tommy, but it’s well to look on the bright side of things. You see, Bob will have to be cook now, and you know he’s a heap better cook than Tommy ever was or ever would have been. Oh, yes, every cloud has a silver lining!” In the store he insisted on buying a dory compass for his own use. “You see, Bob, I might get lost myself on the way back,” he explained. Bob, however, convinced him that what he wanted was a chart.

Their purchases here were not many but bulky, and so they decided to call a hack. When it came, they climbed into it and surrounded themselves with bundles of rope, fenders, lubricating oil in gallon cans, and assorted tools and hardware. It was getting toward five o’clock by this time, and they decided to go to the boat yard, put the things on board, and leave the arranging of them until the morning. They dismissed the carriage at the entrance to the wharf and took up their burdens again. Dan, hurried along by the impatient Barry, was the first to reach the edge of the wharf, and —

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” he cried.

Bob and Nelson hurried to his side. There, lolling comfortably in the cockpit seat of the Vagabond and eating caramels, was Tom!

“You’re a nice one!” said Nelson indignantly. “We thought you were lost!”

“So I was,” answered Tom calmly. “Quite lost. So I hired a hansom and came here.”

“Well, you’ve got a great head, Tommy,” said Dan admiringly. “Give you my word, I’d never have thought to do that! I’d have just roamed about and roamed about until overcome by weariness and hunger. What you eating, you pig?”

“Caramels. I stopped to buy them at a store, and when I came out, you fellows were gone and some one had turned the streets around.”

“And there we were searching for you for hours, worried half crazy,” said Dan. “Stand up there and catch these bundles, you loafer!”

They went home in the elevated and finished Tom’s caramels on the way. After dinner they got their baggage ready to send to the launch in the morning, studied the charts for the twentieth time, and listened to final directions and cautions from Mr. Tilford.

Nelson’s father was a tall and rather severe-looking man of about fifty, and at first the three visitors had been very much in awe of him. But they had speedily discovered that his severity was, to use Dan’s expression, “only shin deep,” and that in reality he was a very jolly sort in a quiet way. And as they entertained an immense respect for him, they listened very attentively to what he had to say that evening in the library.

“Now there’s just one way in which you boys are going to be able to keep out of trouble,” said Mr. Tilford, “and that’s by using sound common sense. The Vagabond isn’t an ocean liner, and you mustn’t think you can take deep-sea voyages in her. I want you to be in port every evening before dark. I don’t care how early you set out in the morning, but I want you to find your mooring or your anchorage by supper-time. If you take my advice, you’ll have at least one square meal every day on shore. You can’t do much cooking on the launch, even if you know how, and to keep well and happy you’ve got to be well fed on good food.

“I naturally feel a bit anxious about this trip, boys. You’ve all received permission from your parents to take it, but it’s my boat and I don’t want anything to happen to you while you’re on it. You’re all of you getting old enough to look after yourselves pretty well, but I don’t know whether you can all do it. My first idea,” he went on, turning to Bob, “was to send a man along with you. But Nelson didn’t like that, and I realized that it would just about cut your fun in half. So I let him back me down on that proposition. Now it’s up to you to prove that I haven’t made a mistake. Nelson knows that engine about as well as I do, and I don’t think there’ll be any trouble to speak of there. Don’t be sparing of oil, Nelson; half the gas-engine troubles originate with the lubrication. Oil’s cheap and repairs are dear; remember that. And don’t be afraid to throw your anchor out. It’s better to ride out a blow in a stanch boat like the Vagabond than to try to make some port that you don’t know anything about.

“I want to get word from you at least every other day, too; oftener, if you can make it. Just a line will do, so that your mother and I won’t worry. Watch your barometer and the weather flags, and when in doubt hug the harbor. Now, how are you off for money?”

Whereupon the session resolved into a meeting of the Committee on Ways and Means.